My autobiography is definitely not a tragedy!
Chapter 132 - 110: Alone and Unassisted

Chapter 132: Chapter 110: Alone and Unassisted

When I thought it was a family drama, suddenly it switched to a suspense scene.

And just when I believed it to be a suspense scene... zombies showed up?

Looking at it this way, Mr. Meng wasn’t being controlled at all, nor was it a conspiracy targeting him. What happened in that courtyard was just one of the countless tragedies happening across Earth at that moment.

This isn’t "the elderly mourn the young," but rather "a group of the elderly mourning the young"...

Realizing individual attacks have no effect on me, so you resorted to carpet bombing?

Fate, you damned old man, have no sense of honor!

Also, weren’t most of the people who went Berserk supposed to be elderly? Why was I affected too? Just because "Alzheimer" includes the word "elderly"?

If you have the guts, include "age spots" as well!

I struggled to start a business for self-rescue, and just as I saw a glimmer of hope, you’re telling me you want to flip the table and quit the game?

As for those who went Berserk... let’s temporarily call it "Madman’s Disease."

No matter how you look at it, they resemble the zombies in movies and TV shows.

Both times they ended up boxed and buried. I wonder if the disease is contagious.

If it’s anything like the T-virus from Resident Evil, where you become infected just by being bitten, and the mutation happens super fast, then I fear the apocalypse is really upon us...

So... human civilization ends in 2043?

"Bro! What’s wrong with you? You’re sweating buckets!" Meng Qingqing’s voice startled Meng Lang, causing him to quickly close the book.

"Oh, nothing really, this book is just kind of scary." Meng Lang wiped the sweat away.

Meng Qingqing glanced at the cover of the book in his hand.

Madman’s Diary?

Beneath the crazily scribbled title, bearing a hint of hysteria, was a group of vague and twisted faces gathered together against a red and black mixed background...

Yep! It does have a rather thrilling vibe.

But the point is this book title...

"What era are you in, reading books from the Republic period? I know you’ve loved reading since you were a kid, but I didn’t know you were so undiscriminating in your reading!"

Meng Qingqing’s eyes widened.

Then she looked at him suspiciously.

"And another thing... how can reading a book make you sweat so much? How intense is your level of immersion?"

How could my immersion not be intense? Besides experiencing it firsthand, there’s the pain that cuts to the bone!

"You don’t understand, this book... every line is about ’cannibalism’!"

Meng Lang sighed softly and put the book away.

"Come on! Haven’t you noticed you’re starting to talk like Grandpa? You’re getting an old pedant vibe!" Meng Qingqing rolled her eyes.

"What are you two doing? Let’s go, time to go home!" At this point, Mr. Meng had finished packing up and was calling them over.

"Oh! Coming! Bro! Why are you spacing out? Let’s hurry!"

Home? Yes, I still have a home, everything is still a distant future...

Meng Lang stood up in silence.

There are moments in one’s life when, despite chaos reigning on the inside, to others, you merely seem a bit more silent than usual, and nobody finds it odd.

This kind of war is inevitably a solo fight...

...

"Xiaoqing, what’s with your brother? He seems out of it since he got back." Yang Hui was picking celery and gestured upstairs.

[Good...Amazing!]

Meng Qingqing, engrossed in playing Candy Crush on her new phone, responded casually,

"Who knows, probably got lost in his book again, just like when he was a kid."

[Unbelievable!]

"Oh yes! Cleared the level!"

"This girl! Always on the game!" Yang Hui gave her a sidelong glance.

"It’s alright, all those entrepreneurs on TV are like this, reading more books doesn’t hurt, it’s better than playing games all day! Hey! Xiaoqing, why can’t I get past this level? Help me out."

Mr. Meng, with a furrowed brow, handed over his phone.

"Dad, how can you be so clueless? You have to get rid of this one first, so the chick falls down!"

"Oh! I see... You cheeky girl, watch your tone with your dad; I’m just not that practiced!"

Yang Hui watched the pair, feeling helpless.

"Not a single one of you is worry-free!"

...

Indeed, Meng Lang was lost in his reading. He sat at his desk, nearly at the point of using a magnifying glass to scrutinize The Madman’s Diary.

"The first time it was in Meng Family Village, and the second should have been in the center of Su City."

The two places were nearly a thousand kilometers apart, yet the outbreak of the madness disease occurred without any warning both times, catching our brothers off guard!

This indicates that neither the news nor the internet had given any advance warning, at least no domestic media had exposed this news.

It’s highly unlikely that such a wide-ranging malignant event could be kept secret.

It’s 2018, a minor earthquake can become viral in friends’ circles within ten minutes, so how could it be that in 2043, the immediacy of communication could have decreased?

Does this imply... that the disaster was widespread and occurred simultaneously?

This is highly illogical..."

This was the biggest mystery in the book, and Meng Lang found it incredible.

Normally, even if some disease had an incubation period, it couldn’t possibly coordinate an onset like this, could it?

Even a biohazard crisis had a Hive and Raccoon City, where there was a sequence of events.

You’re not even talking about a city-wide warning; you’re not leaving me time to write a will—isn’t that a bit too unscientific?

"And this description..." Meng Lang moved his finger to the last few lines.

In the mirror, my eyes were turning white, and my pupils slowly constricted to a dot, while black veins slowly crawled across my forehead and the corners of my eyes.

In my ears was a strange buzzing sound, as if whispers were coming from Hell.

An incomparable thirst for blood surged in my heart in an instant, and I turned my eager gaze towards the doorway...]

"Vision and hearing both seemed to be affected, with capillaries expanding around the forehead and corners of the eyes, affecting areas including the trigeminal nerve, optic nerve, and facial vagus nerve, along with an uncontrollable bloodthirsty instinct...

Considering the symptoms as a whole, does this mean the central nervous system in the brain has been invaded?"

Meng Lang frowned.

The causes of central nervous system anomalies, aside from neurotoxins, usually involve infections such as virus, bacteria, fungal, parasite infections, and so on.

Then there’s a range of degenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease, motor neuron diseases, etc...

Wait! Alzheimer’s disease?

Could this be why I was classified under the "elderly" category?

The nervous system! The problem must be with the nervous system!

Elderly people! One of the differences between the elderly and the young, is the degeneration of the central nervous system!

Generally speaking, as age increases, brain function gradually deteriorates.

After the age of 40, the number of brain cells starts to decline, with a reduction of approximately 20% by age 50, and 20%-30% after age 70.

At the same time, the brain’s weight also becomes lighter, a normal brain weighs about 1500 grams, while the brain weight of an 80-year-old person has decreased by about 10%, resulting in what’s called "brain atrophy."

The total number of brain cells in elderly people decreases, with the number of cells in the cortical region reducing by as much as forty-five percent, hence the elderly might experience a range of cerebral functional changes.

Humanity has yet to fully understand these changes, but if the "madness disease" is an attack on the brain’s central nervous system, and with the clue of mutants occurring only among the elderly...

Then there’s a very high likelihood this is why the elderly were the first to exhibit symptoms!

So... the more the brain atrophies and degenerates, the more susceptible it is to some kind of trigger that leads to "Berserk" status?

Is this intentional? Or just a coincidence?

Meng Lang did a quick search on the computer.

According to United Nations population estimates, starting from 2015, the global population began to enter an aging phase, with the population aged 60 and above expected to reach 2.1 billion by 2050, out of a total population of 9.5 billion.

Whether in the northern or southern hemisphere, whether on plateaus or in the Arctic, whether in the countryside or in cities, the elderly are everywhere.

If the outbreak of the madness disease were regional, that would be one thing. But if it’s global, it means that over one-fifth of the population will turn into reapers, taking the lives of those around them without any warning.

What’s worse, the more developed and aged the country, the more severe the disaster will be.

Passing the villa’s iron gate, one can see an old woman knocking down a young man, using agility and strength that hugely contrasted with her age, she frantically bit the passerby beneath her.]

From this sentence, one can deduce that the "madness disease" not only causes one to lose their sanity, but there must also be some sort of "Berserk" state enhancement effect.

Meng Lang speculated that this must involve shutting off the "self-protection mechanism" in the brain, resulting in the exhaustion of the body’s capabilities.

These are not just reapers; they are reapers with strength and speed far beyond that of ordinary people!

Based on the current clues, it would be a miracle if one percent of the global population remained after the disaster.

Just the thought alone sent shivers down Meng Lang’s spine.

Even worse, most of the experts, professors, scholars in academic fields, as well as those wielding the pinnacle of world power in the ruling class, can be categorized as "elderly."

If all of these people were to fall victim to the disaster, one can imagine that what humanity will face is not just a horrifying civilization gap, but it will also plunge into a leaderless, disorganized state of chaos.

Even if the disaster passed and humanity didn’t go extinct, the chaos and regression in civilization would be inevitable.

With so many coincidences, could this really just be a natural disaster?

Meng Lang had a premonition in his heart... the truth might be even more terrifying than he imagined.

He turned the last page, his gaze falling on the appendix of this session.

The text in "Madman" was sparse, but the smuggled technical documentation was thick, tens of thousands of words spilling out densely.

And its title was...

Research Analysis on the Mechanism of X virus’s Acceleration of Brain Atrophy!